Getting to the finish line...

There’s this curious thing about people who read. Talk about a book they’re reading at present and if you ask them how much of the story they’ve covered, pat comes the reply: “Oh, a hundred and fifty pages (say).” Bully for you, but honestly, that tells me nothing about where the story is right now, so pray tell me what’s going on in the book at that point. That will actually tell me how much you’ve read.  

Somehow, this page-number phenomenon strikes me as indicative of our love for numbers and our instinct to “get to the finish line.” The experience of the journey is somehow less important; the distance covered matters more.

The same is the case with (and I’m truly sorry to be saying this) our reading of the Holy Quran. The month of Ramazan is supposed to be the “season of bloom (bahaa’r)” for the Quran. It is a time for the purification of the human soul, and the reading of the Quran is supposed to be one of the ways to achieve this. Naturally, there is a lot of emphasis on reading the Quran in this month. Here I must confess, my husband and I almost compete with each other over who finishes reading first. I can’t speak for him of course, but for me (sinner, alas!) it becomes more of a 'get-to-the finish-line' feeling rather than actually gaining any knowledge from it.

Last year, after much insistence from my mother, I had left the race-through-Arabic verse routine and focused on the English translation that she bought for me. Incidentally, she’s not a Ramazan-only reader but  a year-round reader of the Quran, and not just in Arabic but English, the language she finds easiest to absorb; the purpose is to read and know. So I followed her example and began to really “read” the Word of the Almighty.

That’s when I discovered why non-Arabic speakers like us do not emphasise the reading of the translation and just keep going over and over the Arabic verse. The latter is so much easier. Going through the complete meaning takes several times the time and effort. You read a couple of lines and you’re compelled to reflect. And then you take time to absorb. At times (and I hope the mullahs spare me for this) you feel confused and try to find out more about the context, about how much has been lost in translation (yes, there’s a very real danger of that) and you set out on a never-ending quest. Sometimes your doubts are put to rest and sometimes you just have to leave it for another time. In any case, all this takes much, much longer. And you can’t even gloat, “Oh, I finished so many chapters in just so many hours,” or "Oh, I finished so many Qurans this Ramazan."

But now I can proudly declare that I managed to read the entire translation and now have some inkling of what the Quran really says. I also vowed to keep reading different translations in the future. 

However, the instinct (and also outside pressure) to get to the finish line is really strong, and I’m back to reading just the Arabic version. Just human nature, I guess!